When you get down to it, Frequency is not a bad little film. It's getting down to it that is the problem. The first 20 minutes or so of the movie are all into setting a mood, which frankly doesn't need to be set. There's far too much eerie music and slow motion dropping of things while events in the past and present are changed in an instant.

But once you're into the thick of the flick, it's quite captivating. The hero is John Sullivan. He's approaching 40, his wife has just left him, but he's very close to his mother, as he has been ever since the tragic death of his father 33 years before. Early in the film he finds his father's old ham radio, and thanks to a freak astronomical occurrence, manages to communicate with his own father.

Now that in itself is kind of interesting, But since this freak communication happens to occur the very night before his father is about to be accidentally killed, it's logical enough that the son would give his father a tip, which results in his father not dying. Which in turn sets off a chain of actions and reactions that are quite effective.

The best scenes are those where we see the events of the past, and then cut quickly to the present to see the effect they have had on the son's life. The presentation is rather like the CBS prime time show "Early Edition" where the guy gets tomorrow's paper today, and goes off to change events. In the same way, every time John Sullivan gives his father a tip, or clue about events that are about to happen, everything changes, from newspaper headlines, to lives and deaths.

Dennis Quaid plays the father, and he's actually really good. Jim Caveizel is the son, and if he's a little forlorn, I guess it's understandable. And both manage to pull off my very favorite accents--that of Brooklyn.

My only criticism of Frequency is that is far too ponderous at the beginning. Since the whole premise of the film is "what if" it doesn't need such belaboring at the outset. Without a doubt all the viewers will be leaving in an existentialist frame of mind pondering their own ifs buts and maybes.